Cons

Bottom Line

TranscribeMe's human-based transcription service works well, but it's expensive, and users can't make edits to transcripts online.

28 Jun 2018

Students and working professionals alike can benefit from using a transcription service to help speed up the process of converting conversations, oral notes, and interviews into usable text. TranscribeMe is noteworthy among such services in that it offers both automatic and human-based transcription services. TranscribeMe's human-based service produced excellent results in our testing, but it costs more than competitors. Furthermore, TranscribeMe does not allow you to edit transcripts online, nor does it offer many collaboration features. Editors' Choice Rev costs less, offers an excellent web editor, and performs just as well in testing.

Transcription Pricing

TranscribeMe's human-based transcription service costs more than the competition's. The basic configuration (Standard service, general industry, 2-3 speakers with time stamps, and standard 2-3 day delivery time) costs $2.00 per minute transcribed. TranscribeMe also offers two other tiers of service, First Draft ($0.79 per minute) and Verbatim ($2.75 per minute). For reference, transcripts ordered with the First Draft option go through one round of edits, as opposed to Standard's two layers of review. The Verbatim option captures all of a speaker's filler words, stuttering, and speech errors. I'll explain the transcription process in more detail a bit later. For reference, TranscribeMe claims a 90 to 95 (First Draft), 99 (Standard), and 100 (Verbatim) percent rate of accuracy.

Your costs may vary depending on the options you choose, however. If you switch the industry selection to one of the other options, such as Healthcare, Technical, or Finance, the cost goes up to $2.60 per minute, given the same parameters. The Urgent delivery speed (which returns your copy in one business day) doubles the cost of the Standard service to $4.00 per minute. TranscribeMe does advertise a coupon code (FD24HRS) for free one-day turnaround on First Draft orders.

GoTranscript does not offer any sort of trial, which is disappointing, but then neither do most of the other human-based transcription services I've tested. Enterprises looking for a transcription solution need to contact GoTranscript directly for specific pricing.

For comparison, Rev charges a flat rate of $1.00 per minute with a 12-hour turnaround time (plus an additional $0.25 per minute for timestamps). Scribie's regular service with a 36-hour turnaround time costs $1.20 per minute. GoTranscript's equivalent service with a 24-hour return window costs $1.35 per minute. The longer your recordings and the more you have, the greater impact this price difference will have on your bottom line.

TranscribeMe's machine-based service costs $0.10 per minute, which is reasonable. This is the same rate that Temi charges. Both are cheaper than Trint's and Sonix's respective subscription options. Trint charges $15 per hour of uploads (or $40 per month for three hours), while Sonix costs $15 per month plus $5 per hour of uploaded audio. Both Scribie and Otter currently offer free automatic transcription services.

Getting Started and Privacy

Signing up for a TranscribeMe account is simple. Just provide an email address and password. TranscribeMe does not give users the option to set up two-factor authentication, which is disappointing. This should be a standard feature in all online services, but few transcription services I've tested support it. With transcription services especially, clients should take every opportunity possible to prevent unauthorized access to what could be sensitive data. Some people may have concerns about the trustworthiness of the human on the other side of a transcription service, since that is another potential weak link, especially considering that automatic services do not involve any humans at all. Thankfully, TranscribeMe clearly explains the way it processes transcripts and it seems sound from a privacy standpoint.

To become a transcriptionist, individuals must complete a training program as well as an exam before working on client audio. Even after passing this exam, transcriptionists are evaluated by "automated quality checks, peer reviewers, weekly spot checks, and mentoring." TranscribeMe uses a system it calls micro-tasking to ensure that transcriptionists only have access to a short, randomized section of a client's transcript.

In some cases, the QA Team will step in to compare the outputs and view the text as a whole. Members of the QA team are selected from the top 10 percent of TranscribeMe's transcriptionists and must sign a comprehensive NDA agreement. They must also complete an additional (and more difficult) training program.

For the truly security-conscious or for enterprise clients, TranscribeMe can perform full background checks on the people working on your transcripts and keep your data within a certain country or geographic region if you have concerns about sensitive information. Note also that TranscribeMe can sign a custom NDA if you require it. TranscribeMe currently uses a combination of Amazon Web Service (AWS) and Microsoft Azure to secure its data.

Web Interface

TranscribeMe recently redesigned its website, and the latest version looks clean and modern. The web interface clearly marks navigation tabs and organizes elements logically and consistently. That said, I encountered some performance glitches during testing. For example, some modules took a significant amount of time to load. Users can access profile settings via the menu in the upper-right corner. Here, clients can edit billing info and set basic email notification preferences. I particularly like the easily accessible Delete Account button.

Ordering a transcript is easy. Just add a file from your computer, Dropbox, or some other source from the web. You then get the option to provide any information you think may be relevant to the transcription process, such as speaker names or technical terms. After that, you select the relevant processing options such as transcription type (Machine, First Draft, Standard, or Verbatim) and turnaround time. The last step is to add payment details. TranscribeMe sends you an email notification once it processes your order and then again once the transcription is complete.

Unlike nearly every other transcription service I've reviewed, TranscribeMe does not allow users to edit transcripts on the web. You can only export finished transcripts to Word, PDF, Text, or HTML format, but TranscribeMe. This is a major omission, as it is a pain to transcribe and play back audio manually, without the appropriate software. The best transcription services build in text editors with integrated playback controls, so you can type and listen simultaneously. If all else fails, you can just copy and paste the generated file into a service like oTranscribe for editing. Sonix goes one step further by making direct changes to your audio file as you edit the transcript text.

From the web dashboard, TranscribeMe lets you generate a public link for sharing, though you have to send it to contacts using your own method. Of course, you can delete the public link at any time. Recipients of the link can play back the audio file or download the transcription in a Word, HTML, TXT, or PDF format. I verified that I could not access the transcript after deleting the public link, though I do wish that TranscribeMe more clearly indicated which transcripts were currently being shared.

At the time of publishing, TranscribeMe's team management features are a bit light. Essentially, you can add collaborators to your account, which gives you the ability to see the other person's recordings and orders. Just add a registered email address in the team management section. Oddly, when I tested this feature, I did not need to confirm access from my secondary account. This is a notable privacy issue. That said, admins cannot order transcripts for other people. If you choose to make a team member an admin, that person gains the same capabilities as the original user.

Other services offer better collaboration options with team-based accounts. For example, Sonix offers more flexibility with roles; it gives admins greater control over who has read and write access. Working with coworkers is also much easier if everyone can listen to and edit the same copy of the file online, something that is not possible with TranscribeMe.

My contact at TranscribeMe explained that in future updates admins would be able to download user metrics, users will be able to share files between coworkers, and corporations will be able to migrate accounts.

How Accurate Is TranscribeMe?

To test out the accuracy of the transcription services, I uploaded the same 16-minute recording to each one. The original recording of a three-person conference call came from an Olympus VN-722PC dedicated voice recorder. It's not an easy recording, but this is the best way to stress-test the services and clearly differentiate their performance. It's also worth noting that since there are humans on the other end of these services, you may experience some variability in the accuracy results.

TranscribeMe finished the transcription process in 5:30 (hours:minutes). This is far quicker than the maximum three-day turnaround time that TranscribeMe promised. It's hard to use the transcription time as a point of comparison because the return time is dependent on many noncontrollable variables. All of the services returned my transcript well within their promised range, however. Rev was the quickest, with a time of 1:16, followed by GoTranscript at 2:58. Scribie took a little over a day (29:02) for the same task, but that time still falls within its 36-hour return window.

Instead of comparing the entirety of each transcript, I choose three paragraphs, one from each speaker on the call. For each snippet of the transcript, I mark an error wherever there is a word that is missing, incorrect, or extra. I calculate the overall error rate by dividing the total number of mistakes by the total number of words across the combined sections (in this case, 201 words). The sample for section A is a short introductory section. Section B is slightly longer and uses more complex vocabulary. Section C is even lengthier and contains some technical language.

TranscribeMe performed very well in testing, producing a transcript with only a 5 percent error rate. However, since TranscribeMe's Standard service (the service I ordered) claims to be 99 percent accurate, our result is closer to TranscribeMe's First Draft service guarantee. My methods likely differ from TranscribeMe's internal tests, so take the percentages with a grain of salt. They're more useful for gauging how the services stack up against each other than as an absolute test of accuracy. In our tests, for example, TranscribeMe fell just behind Rev, our top human-based transcription service, which had an error rate of just 3 percent. TranscribeMe edged out Scribie with its 6 percent error rate and beats GoTranscript's 10 percent rate.

I also tested TranscribeMe's machine transcription service with this first file. TranscribeMe produced a file with an error rate of 51 percent, which sounds bad but is actually about average for an automatic service. Automatic services typically do not perform well on this more difficult transcription test, though Otter did record a result with an admirable 17 percent error rate. TranscribeMe performed worse than Scribie (42 percent) and Temi (44 percent), but fared better than Trint (78 percent) and Sonix (97 percent). Take a look at the full chart below for the complete breakdown.

I retested all the automatic services, including TranscribeMe, with a simpler recording (two people, in-person) and calculated the error rate in the same manner, using two samples instead of three. The automatic services fare better with this task as a whole, but they still aren't perfect. TranscribeMe produced results in the ballpark of the other automatic services, with an error rate of 27 percent. Still, this was the worst result (if just barely) I measured in this second test.

Most of the automated transcription services sped through the easier transcription task in three or four minutes, but TranscribeMe took around six minutes for the same task. Otter also took around six minutes to transcribe the shorter audio sample.

Mobile Apps

TranscribeMe offers both Android apps and iOS apps. I installed TranscribeMe on a Nexus 5X running Android 8.1 and signed into my account without any issues. The app looks outdated and clearly has not received the same attention as the web interface, though it does offer all of the same features. Elements are scattered, and the purple and orange accents don't complement each other particularly well.

From the icon in the upper right, you can access the Settings section, but this has very few options. Notably, you can only enable cellular data uploads (it oddly specifies 3G), sign out of your account, or access the TranscribeMe website. The center of the screen features a prominent Record button, and if you drag up from the bottom, you can view all of your account uploads. You can submit any other recordings for transcription and select from the same ordering options as from the web. Alternatively, you can play back any existing recordings, view the transcripts directly in the app, or share a public link to the transcript.

TranscribeMe's mobile apps are about equivalent to those offered by competitors. Both Rev and Trint, for example, allow you to take recordings from your phone and submit them for transcription. Otter offers the best mobile functionality out of any of the transcription services I've tested. In addition to recording and transcribing, it also lets you edit transcripts directly from the mobile device.

Accurate, But Expensive

TranscribeMe's human transcription service produced excellent results in our accuracy testing, but its automatic machine service did not fare as well as competitors'. TranscribeMe also costs more than competing services and does not let you edit transcripts online. That said, we do appreciate the web dashboard's clean design and that TranscribeMe offers apps for both Android and iOS devices. For a better transcription experience, try Editors' Choice Rev. For an automatic service, we recommend Otter.

About the Author

Ben Moore is a Junior Analyst for PCMag’s software team. He has previously written for Laptop Mag, Neowin.net, and Tom’s Guide on everything from hardware to business acquisitions across the tech industry. Ben holds a degree in New Media and Digital Design from Fordham University at Lincoln Center, where he served as the Editor-in-Chief of The Observer, the student-run newspaper. He spends his free time taking photos and reading books. You can follow him on Twitter at @benmoore214. See Full Bio